Nature reserve spells danger for pandas

A young panda born in captivity at the Wolong Breeding Center (Pic: Marc Linderman/Michigan State University).

New research has found that a nature reserve can be a more dangerous place for pandas than nearby 'unprotected' areas.

Research by US and Chinese researchers published in this week's Science has measured panda habitat destruction inside the high profile Wolong Nature Reserve in Sichuan Province, southwestern China.

The researchers found that not only was it being destroyed faster than adjacent areas, the rates of destruction were higher after the reserve was established than before the reserve's creation.

The 32-year analysis used both data from a recently declassified spy satellite and NASA's Landsat satellites as well as information about the human settlements in the reserve.

To survive, giant pandas need plenty of forest canopy, elevations that allow for comfortable temperatures and slopes that are not too steep.

The research team combined these criteria to define desirable habitat, then mapped it with satellite and remote sensing data. The resulting maps show, over time, prime panda real estate is being nudged out by areas of human habitation.

"Panda habitat is not only being destroyed and fragmented, but it's the high quality habitat that's being selected by human's," says researcher Marc Linderman.

Only about 1,000 giant pandas remain in the wild and 10 per cent of them live in the Wolong reserve which was created in 1975. The wild panda population in the reserve has plummeted from 145 individuals in 1974 to just 72 in 1986. The researchers say this dramatic increase is at least partially due to the habitat loss.

The human factor

Researcher Jianguo Liu, an associate professor of fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University, explains that the local resident population of Wolong has increased 70 percent since the reserve was established.

Those living in the park were mainly of an ethnic minority who were not subject to China's birth control policies.

Human activities that pose a potential threat to the panda reserve includes fuelwood harvesting, farming, house construction, and tourism.

According to Liu, while forests at lower elevation were largely cut before the reserve was established, forests in areas of higher elevation - usually higher quality habitats for pandas - naturally became new targets of destruction for fuelwood.

Tourism has also had an indirect effect, stimulating the local economy in a way that increases the extraction of local resources - including fuelwood to produce smoked pork.

Both Liu and Linderman point to the need for integrating ecology with human demography and behaviour as well as socioeconomics to understand the role of protected areas in fostering biodiversity around the globe.

Wolong is considered a 'flagship' nature park and gets exceptional support from the Chinese government and international organisations like the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Ray Nias, Director of Conservation at WWF Australia was unable to comment specifically on WWF's involvement with Wolong, but he agrees with the importance of understanding the social and economic circumstances of people living in nature reserves.

"There are many protected areas with people living in them around the world," Mr Nias told ABC Science Online.

"Some of these are successful. WWF is interested in attracting people out of the core reserve areas into surrounding buffer zones," he said.

The Science article authors argue that providing better educational opportunities for the residents to help them obtain jobs outside the reserve is likely to be "the most socially acceptable and ecologically sound way" to proceed.